WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Roger Ailes (NYT)

Fox News Chief Exec. Roger Ailes 

“I’m walking around, and I feel just all this anger. I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.” -- NYT Sunday Book Review 

Eric Holder 

“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct.” -- New York Times

Mark Anderson 

 Remind me again: Isn't Pat Quinn supposed to be a man of the people who chose Vallas because he had a “servant’s heart”? -- Ward Room

Historian Eric Foner 

 I'm certainly against this testing mania that's going on now where you can judge whether someone really understands history by their performance on a multiple-choice test. -- The Atlantic

Wendy Katten, director of Raise Your Hand 

What Chicago parents are lacking is the choice to send their child to a well-resourced neighborhood school with funding to provide a well-rounded education that their child can walk to without worrying about traveling unsafe distances. That choice is slipping away as the district aggressively disinvests in neighborhood schools. -- Crain's Chicago Business

James Merriman, N.Y. Charter School chief 

Said that while some charters were “not getting the job done” for special education students, the district schools’ attrition numbers were also “no great shakes.” [80% of children with special needs left charter schools within 3 years-M.K.]  -- New York Times

Mississippi, with strong Common Core and no unions, is losing Race To The Top

As long as we're racing to the top, let's take a look at how the race is going. The theory coming out of the D.O.E., the Gates Foundation and the think tanks is that implementing Common Core Standards is key to winning the race and that the main problem is "status-quo" teacher unions protecting bad teachers.

But according to the latest edition Education Week's Quality Counts report, Mississippi, with no teacher unions and strong implementation of Common Core, ranks 51st among the states and Washington, D.C., in K-12 student achievement. Only Mississippi and post-Michelle Rhee D.C. were graded "F'' in student achievement. Mississippi also ranked among the lowest 10 states in providing young people a chance for success in life, financing schools and improving teaching. Mississippi's best ranking, as has been the case for several years, was in the area of standards, where the state got an "A'' and ranked 10th.

How can that be? The answer should be obvious. As you could probably guess, Mississippi once again lags behind all other 49 states when it comes to child welfare. They're on the bottom of the scale for the 12th straight year. In fact, Mississippi’s child poverty rate is twice as high as Lithuania’s. One key indicator of the lack of school success is the State's bottom ranking when it comes to children being born with low birth weight. 

It's important to understand that Mississippi like all other states, shouldn't be looked at as a single entity when it comes to poverty and education. In Mississippi communities whose school districts have an “A” grade from the Mississippi Department of Education, the average median household income is more than $46,000 a year. In those whose district has an “F” grade, the average income is below $25,000, according to a Daily Journal analysis based on 2013 rankings.

The rest of the country has nothing to brag about when it comes to child poverty. The United States’s child poverty rate ranks second-worst among the world’s developed countries, ahead of only Romania.

Massachusetts, with  the 4th highest median family income in the country, captures the top ranking in the Chance-for-Success Index for the sixth year in a row, earning an A-minus. But even Massachusetts is really "a tale of 3 cities" when it comes to child poverty and school performance.

Side Note: Mississippi is also a state that spends a large chunk of its education and teacher training budget on imported TFA teachers. 

Sorry Rahm. Rauner's toast.

 If “we don’t fundamentally change direction, we’re toast.” -- Bruce Rauner campaign ad

Sorry Rahm. But your boy Rauner is toast. I know, I know, you're officially supporting Quinn, the Democrat, in the governor's race. But, everyone knows you and Rauner are tight. Even though he's supposedly a Republican, he's been one of your many wealthy patrons you're counting on to get yourself re-elected in 2016 and prevent a Chicago de Blasio scenario. He's also your guy when it comes to school closings, smashing teacher unions, and expanding privately-run charters.

Being a Republican for billionaires like Rauner, is like being a member of the Chicago Yacht club. It's not a political statement, it's a statement about your class. Even fellow state Republicans aren't buying it. And like you, he's not even a real Chicagoan. He's an interloper who bought an apartment here so his kid could go to Walter Payton, one of the city's top selective-enrollment schools. Of course it also took a phone call to pal, Arne Duncan, who then made a phone call, and so on. Even the wealthiest in Rahmville, need "a guy." Isn't that how you started out?

But Rauner's problem, like his prototype Romney, is that he lacks the self-discipline to pull off the populist charade ("I'm not a career politician") needed to get himself elected governor. Sooner or later, even with their newly-minted starched plaid shirts and Eddie Bauer vests, these guys can't help but blurt out there disdain for working people and those living in poverty and they become a political embarrassment. Remember Romney's "47%" video?

In Rauner's case, despite all the money he spent on flacks and messaging experts, he just couldn't get his shit together on the overwhelmingly popular issue of raising of the minimum wage (not even talking about a living wage). Despite his previous denials and flip[ant]-flops, after saying he favored cutting the MW by a buck and hour, newly-surfaced September video has him proclaiming Romney-style, that he's ‘adamantly, adamantly’ against raising the minimum wage.

He's basically handed over the Gov's race to Quinn who has his own problems after the great pension robbery and his reviving the political corpse of Republicrat Paul Vallas.

Like I said, Rahm. He's toast.

Not so funny thing is --- Rauner's GOP rival, most likely to get union support in the primary, is even worse on MW than Rauner. Sen. Kirk Dillard says he's against the government setting ANY minimum wage wants the “marketplace” to decide how much or how little workers should be paid. He probably thinks slavery or involuntary servitude could put the state's businesses in a more competitive position.

And speaking of toast... Chris Crispy Christie.

Gates threatens to pull $40M in Pittsburgh funds unless union caves on VAM

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten's sudden turn against so-called Value-Added Models (VAM) of teacher evaluation or not.

But I see that in Pittsburgh, Bill Gates is threatening to renege on $40 million he promised the district if the teachers union and PPS don't "work in harmony" to develop a VAM plan in which teachers are evaluated and paid on the basis of their student's test scores. Collaboration in this case obviously means that the city's teachers are forced to accept anything the district throws at them for fear of being blamed for losing the Gates money.

Gates pulled the same crap in D.C.

You may remember that Gates, Broad, and Walton pulled the same crap in D.C. when they, along with Arne Duncan,  threatened to pull out millions in district funding if voters booted out Mayor Fenty and Michelle Rhee. They did.

But Fenty's replacement Vincent Gray and his current Supt. Kaya Henderson (Rhee's assistant) have bowed to the power philanthropists and continued Rhee-ism (including VAM), without Rhee.

This is precisely why AFT rank-and-filers were concerned with when Weingarten accepted millions from Gates for the union's Innovation Fund. "Innovation" has become practically synonymous with VAM.

This is what happens when public schools are forced to go begging to the world's richest man in order to keep "public" education alive. The question now is, are Weingarten and the PFT willing and able to stand up to Gates' blackmail.

I had an interesting give-and-take with Randi yesterday after she Tweeted:

@NEPCtweet @mikeklonsky-I have always been leery abt #VAM-it's in contracts b/c RTTT-compelled state law- not wking in places its been tried
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) 

I responded:

@rweingarten If you were "always leery" why did you praise Cleveland #VAM deal allowing dist to fire teachers after 2 yrs of bad evals?
— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) 

And:

@rweingarten @NEPCtweet But you called New Haven contract "a model" "a template". Doesn't sound like you were "leery" abt #VAM. Does it?
— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) 

And it went on from there. More probing her always leery comment on my part. No real responsiveness on her part, especially about the damage already done in New Haven, Cleveland, N.Y. and now in Pittsburgh. So much for the power of the Tweet.

To be attacked by Eric Cantor is a good thing

Eric Cantor's ratings in the dumper.

Cantor's attack shows that Mayor de Blasio is on the right track. The wing-nut House Majority Leader is simply going to bat for his hedge-fund school reformer friends in N.Y. who have been riding high and raking in public dough under Mayor Bloomberg.

Cantor fancies himself a r-r-revolutionary storming the anti-government barricades in the name of privatization of all public space. He obviously wishes he was old enough to have experienced the '60s.

“America is in the midst of an education revolution," he tells the Brookings Institute, referring to the unfettered growth of privately-run charter schools and school vouchers going to private and church-run schools.The real irony has this self-proclaimed anti-Washington, anti-gummint, local-control advocate trying to bully a city mayor and a local school district.

He's really upset about BdB's promise to make charter operators pay rent for use of public school space. "This move could devastate the growth of education opportunity in such a competitive real estate market like New York City,” he moans.
Cantor appears to have suddenly joined the war on poverty. While working to block every piece of anti-poverty legislation in Congress over the past 6 years, Cantor now claims that,

 "School choice is the surest way to break this vicious cycle of poverty and we must act fast before it is too late for too many.”

He threatens de Blasio:

“Our committees in the House will remain vigilant in their efforts to ensure that no one, no one from the government, stands in the schoolhouse door between any child and a good education.” 

Umm, Cong. Cantor, aren't you "from the government"? What the hell are you doing, coming up from Dixie  telling New Yorkers how to run their schools? You would do better to stay at home in Va. where your party's candidates are currently railing against school desegregation and where your own approval ratings have fallen to 27%. 

And the "schoolhouse door" reference, calling up images of Gov. Wallace really won't fly. Cantor is currently touting the Louisiana Scholarship Program, a school voucher initiative championed by Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) that was the target of a lawsuit by the Justice Department over claims that it impeded desegregation efforts.


BdB has the right answer for Cantor.

“The Republican agenda in Washington doesn’t even scratch the surface of the inequities facing more than a million children in our public schools,” he said in an e-mailed statement. “It’s a dangerous philosophy that turns its back on public education — and it has failed many times before. What public school parents want — and I know because I’m one of them — are real investments that lift up all our kids. That will take big, bold, progressive ideas. And that’s exactly what the people of New York City just voted for.”

Randi's "VAM is a sham" epiphany

Weingarten, Bloomberg, and Klein announce an agreement on plan that would give N.Y. teachers bonuses based on the test scores of students at schools that have high concentrations of poor children. (New York Times)

I'm glad AFT Pres. Randi Weingarten has finally seen the light on VAM. Really I am.

For those unfamiliar with so-called Value Added Modeling, it's the statistical measure that judges teacher quality based on the test scores of their students. The formula for evaluating teachers, deciding their performance-based pay, or even whether they fired from their jobs, looks like this.

y = Xβ + Zv + ε where β is a p-by-1 vector of fixed effects; X is an n-by-p matrix; v is a q-by-1 vector of random effects; Z is an n-by-q matrix; E(v) = 0, Var(v) = G; E(ε) = 0, Var(ε) = R; Cov(v,ε) = 0. V = Var(y) = Var(y - Xβ) = Var(Zv + ε) = ZGZT + R.

It was obviously invented by some mad scientists and mathematicians working in the basement of the Gates Foundation. 

But the question I have for Randi is -- what are you going to do about all those VAM-based contracts you went along with, lobbied for and helped impose on thousands of teachers in districts like New Haven (which you hailed as a "model" and a "template"),  New York,  L.A., Cleveland, Detroit, and D.C.?

You may have changed you mind, but we will be living with VAM for years to come.

Byrd-Bennett: 'It may have seemed like last minute, but it wasn't'

Yesterday's press conference.

That kind of exotic travel can only enhance Emanuel’s cartoon-like reputation among his harshest critics as “Mayor 1 Percent.” Which is apparently why Emanuel got a bit defensive when asked why he chose not to cut the Christmas trip short when Chicago’s weather forecast went south. -- Sun-Times

Rahm, all dressed up in Eddie Bauer polar fleece, seemed really pissed about having to rush back from his beach junket in Indonesia to fix another Byrd-Bennett screw up -- this one on the schools-open, schools-closed fiasco. BBB, knowing that wind-chill temps in Chicago were going to drop down to a deadly -45° initially ordered schools to remain open and for teachers to suck it up and report to work. Of course no parent in their right mind was going to risk their child's life and limb by having them outside, waiting for a school bus in this weather.

CTU Pres. Karen Lewis would have none of it. And faced with another un-winnable war with parents and teachers, BBB backed down and closed schools. I suspect the cell phone calls right from the beach in Indonesia, with a greased-up mayor screaming, "What the f%#k are you doing to me?" had lots to do with it.

The Trib's John Kass writes:

He [Rahm] was asked about how he let things get so far with the 40-below wind chill and parents not knowing late into Sunday afternoon whether schools would be open, when he stepped back and bravely allowed his schools chief, Barbara Byrd-Bennett to answer for him.

"That's not quite accurate," she told reporters of the Lewis-rolled-Rahm-again scenario. "As we began to take a look at the decrease in the temperature, and a decrease in the wind chill factor … we thought it best. … It may have seemed at the last minute, but it wasn't."

Byrd-Bennett was asked, didn't the teachers union compel you to close schools with its social media campaign?

"I actually was not aware they had done that," said Triple-B, proving she was the only person in Chicago who didn't know. "Somebody did send me an email that there was a press release or whatever but that had no effect on the ultimate decision I've made … and the recommendation I made to the mayor."

This scene had me reflecting on this morning's AP story about a naked man in Australia who had to be greased in olive oil after being stuck in a washing machine. I thought it was a great metaphor for once again, having to remove Rahm's private parts from the wringer. BBB will also need lots of grease to survive this one. Maybe she can borrow some of Rahm's tanning lotion.

ALSO: Be sure and read Todd Mertz' excellent piece on Brother Fred's blog about why the Sun-Times backed a pension bill that "kicks ordinary working people–secretaries, clerks, teachers, and the like–in the teeth." And why so many pols did so with shit-eating grins on their faces.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits..." --  Crain's

Greg Hinz

The prototype for the Emanuel mayoralty was Michael Bloomberg's New York: rich guys, bicycle lanes, central control, the whole schmear. Mr. Bloomberg's popularity waned dramatically after his first two terms and his successor, Bill de Blasio, is a liberal who has good relations with unions and minorities. The message to Mr. Emanuel is clear: Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits, however good their advice seems. Running a city takes a wider reach. -- Crain's Chicago Business

Times Editorial

Studies have shown that suspensions and expulsions do nothing to improve the school climate, while increasing the risk that children will experience long-term social and academic problems. Federal data also indicates that minority students are disproportionately singled out for harsh disciplinary measures. -- Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered

Bill de Blasio

 “We start with our values. We start with the positions we took and made public throughout the last year. We will drop the appeal on the stop-and-frisk case, because we think the judge was right about the reforms that we need to make. We will settle the Central Park Five case because a huge injustice was done.” -- N.Y. Times

Carmen Fariña 

“Once I was about to visit a principal who told me, ‘You’re going to love coming here because you can hear a pin drop.’ I said, ‘I better not come because that isn’t going to make me happy.’ ” -- N.Y. Times

Waiting for a Chicago de Blasio?

Interesting piece in yesterday's S-T, "Chicago lefties look for their own Bill de Blasio". Dan Mihalopoulos obviously has his ear to the ground.

A nation — or at least the left-leaning activists of this one big city — is eager to turn its lonely eyes to someone who can take on the Chicago mayor whom lefties deride as “Mayor 1%” and the quintessential DINO (Democrat in Name Only).... Meanwhile, all the talk from the East Coast about combating income inequality, reining in charter-school expansion and other leftist issues has warmed Chicago lefties who see de Blasio as the sort of mayor this city needs instead of Rahm Emanuel.

But Mihalopoulos must understand that it's not just "lefties" or the CTU who want to take out Rahm. His positive ratings are lower than snail shit and there's even a significant section of Chicago's ruling class who have grown tired of the chaos, violence and corruption that have marred the city's image.

Mihalopoulos is right on top of things when he focuses on the lack of a unified labor movement in Chicago. Many of the city's union leaders are still tied to the Democratic machine by a thousand threads. Patronage rules the city council with the exception of a small but energized Progressive Caucus. BdB rode to victory on the strength of an independent political movement, the Working Families Party, led by organized labor. The WFP not only won for de Blasio, it elected dozens of councilmen as well. De Blasio's victory was also mirrored in Rochester with the election of Lovely Warren.

Mihalopoulos writes:

By the end of 2014, we will know whether the self-styled real Democrats of Chicago can transform such rhetoric into action. Before there can be a Chicago incarnation of de Blasio, one or all three of the big anti-Rahm labor groups could have to convert public discontent with Emanuel into the actual political muscle that would support a legitimate challenger, whoever that may be.

What he doesn't say is that there's much more involved in winning City Hall. Big money rules modern day elections and no independent candidate can possibly match Rahm's war chest, filled to the brim by a gaggle of billionaire cronies. But if there is any hope for the 99% in Chicago, it rests with the building of a WFP-style movement with an independent election strategy.

Mihalopouls' piece recalls for me the title of Clifford Odets depression-era play, "Waiting for Lefty" as well as the horrible teacher-bashing film, "Waiting for Superman". Rahm and many of his city council toadies can be had in 2015. But we can't wait for a de Blasio.

Why Duncan had it in for Starr

Starr opposed Duncan testing madness

Here's more on Arne Duncan's direct interference in de Blasio's selection of a schools chancellor. Duncan and his assistant, Jim Shelton (the man from Gates), pressured BdB against the selection of Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr. WaPo education writer Valerie Strauss explains why Duncan felt so threatened by Starr.

Starr, who runs Maryland’s largest school district, just miles from the White House, became nationally known last year when he made a call for a three-year moratorium on high-stakes standardized testing, a central component of Duncan’s school reform policies. Starr said the country should “stop the insanity” of evaluating teachers according to student test scores, calling it a flawed method.

Let's Make a Deal
Having lost the battles, both to prevent de Blasio's election and then to get him to pick a Michelle Rhee-type schools chancellor, N.Y. corporate reformers are now calling for a "truce". Charles Sahm from the right-wing Manhattan Institute writing in the Daily News, calls on the de Blasio administration to "drop its anti-charter plans and rhetoric," make teachers work a longer day for less money and a cut in benefits, and avoid Fariña's "progressive" curricular leanings.
That's not a "truce". It's a surrender.

Outlaws in America

Edward Snowden "has done his country a great service," says yesterday's New York Times editorial."When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government." I agree.

More on Fariña pick: You can't go wrong expecting the worst from Duncan.

In yesterday's post on de Blasio's appointment of Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor, I implied that pressure from Arne Duncan and his assistant, Jim Shelton (a Gates Foundation insert at the DOE), was being exerted on the new mayor to appoint a corporate reformer type. As it turns out, I was right on the money. I've learned long ago, that you're almost always on safe ground when anticipating unethical behavior from the Duncan gang.

Yesterday's Washington Post reports:

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and at least one other Education Department official urged New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and his team not to choose Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr as the city’s next schools chancellor, according to several people knowledgable about the selection process. It was an unusual move by the nation’s top education official and came in the wake of Starr’s vocal criticism of some of the Obama administration’s school reform policies.

Starr was reportedly on BdB's short list that included Rhee disciple, Maya Henderson and Chicago's school-closing CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Credit both Starr and de Blasio for not giving in to Duncan's bullying. BdB reportedly offered Starr the number 2 job on the assumption that he would soon take over for the 70-year-old Fariña. Starr declined, opting instead to continue his work in Montgomery County, where he earned the wrath of Shelton by criticizing Duncan's Race To The Top.

Duncan used his position to stump for Rhee and Fenty in D.C.. 

Duncan and Shelton were both big fans of Michelle Rhee in D.C. and Duncan even tried to provide cover for her in the D.C. test-cheating scandal.

According to the Post,

In January 2011, while D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) deliberated on who would succeed Michelle A. Rhee as D.C. schools chancellor, Duncan said publicly that he hoped Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s deputy, would get the job. She did.

Thoughts on de Blasio's choice of Carmen Farina as his schools chancellor

The educators and activists I know and whose opinions I trust in N.Y. all think Mayor BdB made a great choice, and that Carmen Fariña will be a breath of fresh air in a school system stinking from Michael Bloomberg's corporate pollution.

So do I, especially considering the other names that were being floated around. I'm sure the DFER hedge-funders, corporate reformers and charter profiteers like Eva Moskowitz, were all exerting pressure on the mayor to pick a Michelle Rhee-type like D.C.'s Kaya Henderson or even (yikes!) Barbara Byrd-Bennett, whose credibility string in Chicago ran out long ago. I don't doubt more of the same was coming down the pike from Arne Duncan and the Obama team at the DOE.

I'm also thinking back to the pitiful string of  corrupt, corporate-style union busters (Joel Klein), know-nothings (Cathleen Prunty "Cathie" Black, remember her?), and neer-do-wells (Dennis Wolcott) that Mayor Bloomberg sicked on N.Y. teachers and parents over the past decade. Seen in that light, the choice of a democratic-minded, highly competent, career educator like Fariña should bring a smile to faces of the school community and rightfully so.

I also like that she's a small-schooler and helped create several new, small middle schools within District 15, a tactic de Blasio has praised.

Having said that, and listening to the great exhale all the way from Chicago, I'm also reminding myself that education, like politics, like democracy, isn't a spectator sport. The changes we need don't begin and end in either the mayor's or the chancellor's office.

The de Blasio victory and the independent movement that led to it in New York, are all worth celebrating -- like the Occupy Wall St. movement that preceded it. I hope we can learn the appropriate lessons here in Chicago. As the new year approaches, the future looks a lot brighter for New York educators than it looked before.

Side Note:  I'm taken by the fact that Fariña (like me) is 70 and that she's the daughter of immigrants from Spain who fled the Franco regime. I feel a certain kinship there and wish her well.

On de Blasio's Choice

Pedro Noguera

“Mayor-Elect de Blasio has made an excellent choice in picking Carmen Fariña to lead New York’s public schools. For the first time in many years the nation’s largest school system will be led by an educator with a keen understanding of curriculum and instruction, who is committed to actively supporting our public schools.” -- Gotham Schools

Diane Ravitch

 It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store. This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation. -- Ravitch blog

Working Families Party

 WorkingFamiliesParty @WorkingFamiliesCarmen Fariña - exactly the Schools Chancellor we need to put an end to a corporate, high-stakes testing approach to education -- Tweet

 Northwestern Prof Nadav Shoked

The Chicago experience under Mayor Rahm Emanuel reveals that there is no reason for business interests to lose sleep. Business need not worry, and those opposed to business should rein in their hopes. The structures of American local government law assure that "transformative" mayors will not transform much. -- Chicago Tribune Business Opinion

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

E.L. Doctorow (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

E.L. Doctorow at National Book Awards

We in this room especially have to appreciate metaphor. We're the descendants of writers who saw the sun as Helios' chariot riding across the sky. And yet... when was the last time, hearing the word mouse, that you thought of a small gray rodent? Or heard the word web and thought of a spider? -- "The Promise—and Threat—of the Internet" 

N.Y Times on de Blasio's pick

The choice [of Carmen Farina] reflected Mr. de Blasio’s desire to depart radically from the educational policies of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, including his emphasis on data and his policy of shuttering low-performing schools. -- "Veteran of City School System Is Said to Be Next Chancellor"

Carmen Farina

CUNY Prof. David Bloomfield

“Clearly the teacher evaluation system will be on the table immediately. That would be my day one activity if it hasn’t started already.” -- Carmen Farina to head D.O.E

TFA & KIPP Teacher

 "Five weeks was not enough to create the type of magic that Teach For America describes in its vision. Training was like leading us to the top of a cliff before we had to jump off into the reality of our own classrooms. All I can say is the mountain was high and the fall was hard." -- Julian Vasquez Heilig's blog

How about telling the Tale of 2 Cities in Chicago?

Lovely Warren (left) celebrates victory

The two-cities movement is spreading beyond New York City, where it swept Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio into office. This same focus on inequality is also what led to the election last month of Lovely Warren as Mayor of Rochester.

According to the New York Times:

Warren won election as mayor of Rochester last month with a campaign lamenting what she called the “two Rochesters,” challenged by crime and poverty, but also boasting prosperous neighborhoods.

 The push in New York comes as a variety of elected officials across the nation have begun talking more insistently about income inequality, an issue that has been discussed for some years but has rarely prompted significant action.

This tale of two cities must become the narrative of any serious contender who has the courage and political savvy to challenge Rahm Emanuel and the one-percenters who run the political machinery,  in the next Chicago mayor's race. It's one that will resonate with most of the people in this city and create the basis for successful, independent political movement in the city that can take back Chicago and its schools

Trib's "magic moment" of 2013. Mine too.

This from today's Chicago Tribune:

Protesters of 'Persepolis'-gate

March 15, Lane Tech College Prep High School, Chicago

Massive school closings, epic teacher layoffs. Chicago Public Schools officials had plenty to answer for in 2013. So much that their decision in the spring to yank Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel/memoir "Persepolis" out of schools and libraries because of a complaint (about a single image of torture) became something of a cultural blip. But what a blip: The banning led students at Lane Tech to rally against censorship in the rain outside their school. Which led to the news spreading internationally, the irony of the banned selection particularly poignant. (The 13-year-old book tells the story of Satrapi's childhood in culturally repressive Iran.) Which gave 451 Degrees, an obscure student book club at Lane Tech that reads only banned books, a popularity it couldn't have achieved on its own. Six months later — long after the outcry led to CPS telling its principals to reinstate "Persepolis" — 451 Degrees, founded by 16-year-old senior Levi Todd, was given the Illinois Library Association's prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award. — Christopher Borrelli

Belmont's Blues

Roybal Learning Center

There's a pretty good piece in yesterday's L.A. Times about the trials and tribulations of the once-giant Belmont High School. I wrote extensively about Belmont more than a decade ago, opposing the board's decision to replace the 5,000 (mostly Mexican) student school with another humongous school-- the Belmont Learning Complex (now named the Roybal Learning Center), built on a toxic site at the highest cost ever for an American high school.

After years of restructuring, destructing, re-designing and clean-up at a cost of around $200 million, today's Belmont is a trimmed-down community school. While it's lost some of the wonderful tradition of the old neighborhood school, relationships between students and educators are stronger, students feel safer, and measurable learning outcomes have improved. The problem now is that the school is being surrounded by an ever growing number of privately-run charter schools competing with Belmont for scarce dollars and trying to skim off the school's best students.

Christmas Quotables

Christmas in Washington

Jonathan Merritt in The Atlantic: "If he were taking the red-eye flight from San Francisco to New York today, Jesus might be profiled for additional security screening." -- The Race of Jesus Unknown, Yet Powerful

NSA Whistle Blower Edward Snowden: "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They’ll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that’s a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.” -- Alternative Christmas Message

Kurt Vonnegut: “If what Jesus said was good, what can it matter whether he was God or not?” -- Daily Vonnegut 

Daniel Denvir: "This Christmas, it’s clear that our wealthiest citizens expect the lion’s share of Santa’s bounty. In Philadelphia, the rich reap philanthropy in reverse." -- City Paper

Still cleaning up Rhee's Value-Added mess in D.C.

Seattle teachers protest Rhee-forms.

They're still cleaning up the debris from Michelle Rhee's signature reform in D.C.. Her top-down imposed Value-Added IMPACT system of teacher evaluation has long caused havoc in the system here and elsewhere. Remember, it's also a central piece of Arne Duncan's Race To The Top.

The teachers union should have never agreed to IMPACT and evals based on student test scores.  The formula for tying every student's test score bump or dip directly to an individual teacher is so complicated and inherently error-ridden that it's bound to confuse parents and negatively affect teachers and students.

Monday's Washington Post reports that faulty calculations of the “value” that D.C. teachers added to student achievement in the last school year resulted in erroneous performance evaluations for 44 teachers, including one who was fired because of a low rating. School officials described the errors as the most significant since the system launched a controversial initiative in 2009 to evaluate teachers in part on student test scores.

Half of the evaluations for the 44 teachers were too high and half too low, said Jason Kamras, chief of human capital for D.C. Public Schools.

Current WTU Pres. Elizabeth Davis, called the disclosure disturbing.

“IMPACT needs to be reevaluated,” Davis said. “The idea of attaching test scores to a teacher’s evaluation — that idea needs to be junked.”

Now she tells us.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray and Chancellor Kaya Henderson, a Rhee protege, aren't likely to junk V-A regardless of its consequences.

We should also consider the shameful role played by some academics in the imposition of value-added evals. One case in point: It was back in October when Professors Thomas Dee of the Stanford Graduate School of Education and James Wyckoff of the University of Virginia were heaping praise on  Rhee's V-A program, calling it, effective and accurate.

View from Florida: Chicago charter scandals look familiar

Tea Party Gov. Rick Scott visits Florida charter school

Chicago's scandal-ridden charter schools look eerily familiar to educators down here in Florida where public schools have long been free give-aways to Govs. Bush and Scott's corporate and political cronies. It seems that almost anyone with blood or alcohol running through their veins can get a charter here in the Sunshine State --- students and teachers be damned.

A December 14th NPR report found that Florida charters openly and illegally violate the rights of disabled students.  In fact, a recent Miami Herald investigation found that few charter schools in Florida  even try to serve students with severe disabilities. Statewide, 86% of charter schools do not have any students classified as severely disabled. That's despite state and federal laws that require charter schools to give equal access to these students.

Kids from low-income families and children of color are also systematically excluded from the state's wildly-expanding, privately-run charters.

The difference between Florida and Illinois is that  in Illinois, the Democrats -- not Rick Scott's Tea Party Republicans -- run the schools. The latest Concept charter school give-away was done by one Dem machine warlord faction overruling the other to do the bidding of Turkish billionnaire Fethullah Gulen in exchange for some free junkets to Turkey.

Another difference is that, while Florida charters openly and willfully violate the law in their discriminatory practices, Illinois charter rip-offs of public dollars and trust are all legal.

Yesterday, DNAinfo reported that new Chicago charter schools could  cost  city and state taxpayers an additional $20 million this year and $255 million over the next decade. This in a district that the Mayor and his predecessor have already mortgaged to the teeth and where schools in black and Latino neighborhoods are being shuttered in record numbers.  Those millions will be taken directly from the swelling classrooms in oversized public schools and from children and families in the city's under-served communities.

Considering that comes after the Board of Education closed 50 schools earlier this year, citing a billion-dollar budget crunch, and imposed cuts on schools districtwide over the summer, Wendy Katten of Raise Your Hand called that "mind-boggling.  

"At this point it's crossed the line so that you're wondering if everyone's on the same planet with the same fiscal facts," Katten said Monday. "I'm not sure if these people have any clue how bad things are at any of the district schools with the funding. They can't take any more cuts."

Chicago Alderman Bob Fioretti agrees with Katten:

 "This is really a continuation of the misplaced priorities by CPS. We need to focus on funding our neighborhood schools. We're seeing neighborhood schools suffering across this city. We're seeing closures by the mayor and CPS on these 50 schools. Yet they claim they can't deal with the overcrowding."

Fioretti renewed calls for an elected Board of Education, adding, "There's no accountability at CPS."

TURKEYS

I've got news for charter-hungry IL pols like House Speaker Mike Madigan and Ald. Joe Moore, who were bought  off with free Turkey junkets. Groupon was recently offering round trip flights to Istanbul plus hotel for about $900. Makes me wonder if Fethullah found a Groupon for buying crooked politicians on the cheap?

POSTSCRIPT:

Last week  FBI agents raided one of Gulen's charter schools in Louisiana. During the raid at the Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter school in Baton Rouge, federal agents seized several boxes from the campus but they refused to reveal the reasons behind the raid.

The Justice Dept. and AG Eric Holder has been at war with  La. Gov. Bobby Jindal and his use of "school choice" to impede court-ordered school desegregation in the state.  The Justice Department filed suitin New Orleans federal court to block 2014-15 vouchers for students in public school systems that are under federal desegregation orders.

There's no word yet as to whether or not the raids and the DoJ suits are connected.